Lookonline.com is the longest running fashion site on the Internet. Published since 1994.

Monday, April 03, 2006

Editorial: The Incredible Pretentiousness of Being a Golden Blonde

We are not the only ones who got nauseous reading that insipid and downright silly article in this past Sunday's New York Times called "Golden Blondes" written by Jill Gerston. Click here for article. Are we suppose to care about these people? Obviously Ms. Gerston does, but it says more about her than the subject of the article.

And while Gawker.com beat us to the editorial punch, we just cannot let this kind of crap go by unscathed without making some comments of our own. Here are some of the more profound quotes from the article: "You can't work in fashion in this city and not look good," explained New York blonde Ms. Castellano (an account executive at Ogan Dallal Associates with the golden locks of hair that she spends hundreds of dollars each month to keep up).)

And, according to Jill Gerston, a "New York blonde" is a “polished, pedigreed creature[who] can usually be spotted in her natural habitat, the Upper East Side, dropping off her offspring at the Episcopal School, scrutinizing embroidered 480-thread-count sheets at Pratesi and sipping drinks at La Goulue.”

We are not sure if we should laugh or cry as to what the writer considers "news worthy" but this "epistle" seems little more than a pay back article plugging (sucking up?) some of Jill Gerston's friends, associates, and close editorial sources. Not since the days of the late editor Amy Spindler, has the Times allowed a writer to pander so much to his or her sources. Talk about name dropping (not to mention book titles), Jill has got everyone from Plum Sykes (whose pontifications was referenced 5 times) and Ivanka Trump to Robert Verdi and a gaggle of colorists, socialites, and other well known and well connected fashionistas who are sure to keep Ms. Gerston busy with scores of invites to top parties, free color consultations and cocktail parties from now until Christmas!

The only question posed by this article that has not been answered to our satisfaction is not do blondes have more fun, but to what extent Ms. Gerston's cronyism is being encouraged by the editors of the Style Section of The New York Times. This article is another example of why the phrase "fashion journalism" as practiced by so much of the media -- and particularly The New York Times -- continues to be a oxymoron.

Perhaps we are being too hard on Jill Gerston. A Bernadine Morris she is not. See, we can name drop also.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Featured Post

An Expert’s Take on the Celebrity Divorces of Trump Jr & Jennifer Aniston Diane Clehane & Lisa Zeiderman Click image for full s...

E-mailed Newsletter: Get every new post sent directly to your in box

Support our site

Become a supporting member of our site for a one time contribution of only $59. Click
here and become a member. Our site has been up for 24 years and we are a unique fashion resource.

New York Market Reports

Marilyn Kirschner our editor-in-chief and former senior Market Editor of Harper's Bazaar for many years reports on the Fall/Winter and Spring/Summer New York collections for every season going back over 15 years. These kinds of reports are found no where else and are offered free to our readers. Additional past commentary was written for us by Bernadine Morris the former senior fashion writer of the New York Times.
Click here for the latest Fall/Winter 2019 report and links to all the other past reports..

About Me

Lookonline.com is the longest publishing online fashion site in the world. It was launched first as a BBS service in 1993 and has been on the Internet since December 1994. The DFR: Daily Fashion report is also the first fashion blog and was started in early 2002 as the site's main news page. Before launching the site, I was for many years a New York fashion photographer.